Conferences · Testimonies · The festival’s main event. 4th and 5th December. Two days in which we bring together influential national and international professionals and also young talent related to a common theme: testimonies. We will not only discuss type design but also how it applies to different design disciplines, always maintaining an enjoyable and innovative approach.

Jean-Baptiste Levée works methodically in a process where history and technology are approached altogether within the nuances of artistry. He manufactures functional, yet versatile digital platforms for designers to build upon.
Levée has designed over a hundred typefaces for industry, moving pictures, fashion and publishing. His work has won multiple awards and has been shown internationally in group and solo shows. It is featured in the permanent collections of the French national library (BnF) and the National Center of arts (Cnap); of the Newberry Library in Chicago, and several printing museums in Europe. He is a board member and the country delegate for France at ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale). Levée curates exhibitions on typeface design, organizes research symposiums and teaches typeface design at the Amiens school of Arts & Design and at the University of Corte. He is a typography columnist and editor on Pointypo.com.

Toshi Omagari is a type designer born in Japan. After graduating from Musashino Art University in Tokyo, he went on to study typeface design at the University of Reading in 2010–2011. Since then, he has been working full time as a typeface designer at Monotype in London. He won the Modern Cyrillic competition 2014 with Marco, and received TDC Certificate of Excellence in Type Design 2014 with Metro Nova. He also translates typographical contents of all kinds of media to Japanese, such as Fred Smeijers’s Counterpunch, Doug Wilson’s Linotype: the film, and Georg Seifert’s Glyphs, the font editor.

Swiss Typefaces is a project of three alumni of ECAL: Ian Party, Maxime Büchi and Emmanuel Rey. Having finished their studies about 10 years ago, they were the first ECAL students to push the creative boundaries of typefaces design for their diploma projects.

Since then, they’ve never stopped designing letters and gained international success creating exclusive typefaces and logotypes for companies and brands like Rick Owens, Mugler, L’Officiel Paris, Vogue Turkey and Vogue Brazil magazines, Sang Bleu, SKY TV New Zealand, the City of Stockholm or Oi, the largest telecommunications company in South America.

In addition to these tailor made projects, they distribute their fonts via swisstypefaces.com. They’re known for their innovative views on the business of type design and creative approach when running their company, complementing their unique design skills and particular aesthetic.

A new Swiss style is coming from Lausanne, and the implication of Swiss Typefaces is important as their are teaching there since almost 10 years.

Raúl García del Pomar and Ismael González met each other at the Fine Art department whilst studying in Salamanca, where they graduated Graphic and Audiovisual Design in the year 2000. Years later, after working for different agencies and studios they started their own personal project in 2010, Atipo®, a small studio that takes on multidisciplinary projects; identity, illustration and type design. Right from the start they collaborated with national and international clients and their work has received various prizes Laus (on various occasions), gràffica, Brandemia, European Design Awards, amongst others, and has also been featured in a numerous publications.

Graphic and Type designer graduated from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Guest Professor at the “Specialization in Typeface Design” post graduate course. Since 2001 she runs her own studio Sonnenshine specializing in branding. She has developed font projects in Latin, Cyrillic and Devanagari. She gave lectures at various events and educational institutions in Argentina, Spain and Germany. She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

She studied Visual Communications at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt where she focused on photography and typography. In 2007, she interned with MAGMA Brand Design where she was exposed to writing and editorial work. In 2008, she started working for Slanted full time to establish it as a professional magazine and blog with a worldwide distribution and awareness. As the managing editor and graphic designer of Slanted, she built up a broad network of designers from all over the world. These connections were the foundation for all other publications that were edited and conceptualized by Slanted.Since July 2014, she is founding partner of SLANTED PUBLISHERS, which is now operated by her and her business partner Lars Harmsen, with a view to share the affection for typography and design.

BunkerType is not a look into the past. Nor is a “printing house” nor I am a printer. I do not intend to recover any artisanal job neither I do commercial printings. I am not interested in vector illustration, computer work neither photopolymers.

I am interested in the concept, the process and the assembly of movable types. I am delighted taking the limitations of the traditional typographical system. I am excited being able to evade the limitations of the traditional typographical system. I like to notice the materiality of the letters, hold them and appreciate them as objects.
I am not a printer, I just enjoy printing.

“One day, not long ago, I discovered I was in love with letterforms. Then I realised I had not stopped working with letterforms since I started helping my father, a teacher and sign painter, at the age of 11.”

Juan Luis Blanco is a graphic designer, type designer and calligrapher based in Zumaia (Spain). He has worked as a freelancer graphic designer from 1997, and in 2013, he attained an MA in Typeface Design at the University of Reading. During the MA in Typeface Design he developed Amaikha, a multi-script font family comprising Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and Tifinagh. Currently he combines calligraphy classes and graphic design with typographic projects that focus in the peculiar Basque lettering style. He loves designing typefaces is also passionate about music and rock-climbing.

Diego Dier has worked as a professional mural and signpainter for the last ten years and for the last three has focussed specifically on his own personal project Rotulación a mano (Signpainting by hand) which was established in Madrid, Spain.

Alongside studying his degree in Psychology, specialized in Marketing, he maintained a parallel practice in the graffiti world and also trained in Fine Arts and attended various workshops facilitated by David A. Smith (UK) Mike Meyer, Noel Weber (US) and Alfredo Genovese (ARG.)

He has participated in various exhibitions and festivals related to the visual arts and recently at the anniversary of the Festival Asalto in Zaragoza he exhibited in a group show that celebrated the value of traditional signpainting by hand in the urban environment.

Dier continues to study the art of traditional signpainting techniques that are sadly disappearing as well as working for clients that have small businesses, restaurants and shops and also brands such as Ford, Heineken and Cervezas La Virgen.

Sandrine Nugue was born in 1985. After she earned a BTS (two-year technical degree) from the École Estienne (Graduate School of Arts and Printing Industry, Paris), she continued her education at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs, Strasbourg, where she developed a deep interest for reading mechanisms, and designed a new typeface intended to allow a fast and intuitive reading of movie subtitles. She then decided to specialize in typedesign, and she got into a post-graduate program named « Typographie & Langage » at the École supérieure d’art et de design, Amiens, where she designed the Ganeau typeface (A latine in various optical sizes). She graduated in February 2013. Since then, she has been working both with typedesigners, and as an independent graphic designer. Recently she designed Infini, a free font family for a public commission initiated by the Centre national des arts plastiques.

Damià Rotger Miró is a graphic designer specialized in type design. He graduated in Graphic Communication and studied two post-graduate degrees, one in Corporate Identity Design and the other in Typography and Editorial Design. He combines his work as a Graphic Designer at Dúctil (a studio of which he is a founding partner) with creating his own typographic projects. He is a typography and editorial design professor at Edib (Palma de Mallorca) and an Advertising art direction professor at Vigo University. He organizes Glíglifo (with Pedro Arilla), is co-founder of Formats (platform for the creation of workshops about typography and graphic design), as well as being a collaborator of PechaKucha Mallorca and member of Lletraferits. He has been a pioneering typography teacher at Balreare and has given speeches all over the country. He has been a member of the jury in numerous design contests. He has also won several prizes and nominations such as Premios Laus, Premios Graffica, Premios Anuaria, Premios Visual Daniel Gil of editorial design, Behance Reviews prize, InnovEm prize and Premio Balear de la Comunicación, amongst others. His work has been exhibited in Barcelona, Rio, MIVUM Valencia, 4th Typography Congress, Matadero, Sa Possesió, etc, and have also been published in both national and international publishing companies such as Rockport America, IndexBook, MDX-China, ArtpowerJapan, Anaya, Monsa Ediciones, Etapes France and China, etc..
He is author of typographies: Concu, Miona, Crespell, Dúctil, Lullius Rotunda, Lullius Textura, Lullius TexturaModula, Cintax, FernandezCoca, Nuada, Moll, Namaste y UIB.
At the moment he is working on typographic recuperation and on a macro font family for a publication of poetry and essays.